Kateryna Lagno

Kateryna Lagno
Full name	Kateryna Oleksandrivna Lahno Kateryna Aleksandrovna Lagno
Country	Ukraine (until 2014) Russia (since 2014)
Born	(1989-12-27) 27 December 1989 Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster Woman Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2529 (April 2024) (No. 11 ranked woman in the November 2015 FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating	2557 (January 2012)

Kateryna Aleksandrovna Lagno (Ukrainian: Катерина Олександрівна Лагно, Katerina Oleksandrivna Lahno; Russian: Екатерина Александровна Лагно, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Lagno; born 27 December 1989) is a Ukrainian-born chess player; in 2014 she became a Russian citizen. She earned the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) at the age of 12 years, four months and two days. In 2007 she was awarded the Grandmaster title.

She won two team gold medals at the Women's Chess Olympiad, in 2006 and 2014, playing for Ukraine and Russia respectively. She also won team gold at the Women's World Team Chess Championship of 2013 playing for the Ukrainian team, and at the Women's European Team Chess Championships of 2013 and 2015 playing for Ukraine in the former and Russia in the latter.

Career

Born in Lviv, Lagno grew up in the industrial and chess-friendly town Kramatorsk, later moving to Donetsk.

In 1999 she won the Under-10 girls section at the World Youth Chess Championship in Oropesa del Mar.

Lagno was nominated by FIDE president to play in the 64-player knockout Women's World Chess Championship 2004, where she was the fifth seed. She reached the third round and lost to eventual runner-up Ekaterina Kovalevskaya. At the age of 15 she won the 2005 European Individual Women's Championship, held in June in Chişinău, Moldova. Tied with Russian IM Nadezhda Kosintseva at the end of the 12th round with 9 points each, Lagno won both games of a two-game rapid-play tie-break playoff to win the championship. She won IV Women's "North Urals Cup – 2006", attaining a grandmaster norm in the process. In May 2008, Lagno won the European Individual Women Chess Championships again in Plovdiv, by one-half point in the 11-round open tournament.

On February 25, 2009 she married Robert Fontaine, French chess grandmaster and TV reporter. In the same year, she played for the club "Spartak" that won the Russian team championship and the European Club Cup in Ohrid. In August 2010, Kateryna became Women's World Blitz Champion. At the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul in 2012, she won the individual bronze medal for her performance on board one.

In 2014 she won the Women's World Rapid Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk by tie-break over Alexandra Kosteniuk.

On 11 July 2014 FIDE officially approved her transition from the Ukrainian Chess Federation to the Russian Chess Federation, as filed in March 2014.

External links

• Kateryna Lagno chess games at 365Chess.com
• Kateryna Lagno player profile and games at Chessgames.com